The Grateful Thread

[legalskier]

Jerry's been gone 15 years now- doesn't seem that long.

Jerry Garcia Remembered: The Grateful Dead Live On 15 Years After His Passing
Rock 'n' roll has always named its own messiahs, its own idols, its own heroes. Jim Morrison was looked at as some kind of shaman, John Lennon is portrayed as a fallen martyr and Eric Clapton has been proclaimed God. But among all those who worship rock stars, Jerry Garcia's fans may just be the most dedicated. For years, they traveled across the country like some kind of gypsy caravan, just so they could hear him play guitar and sing, night after night -- some nights better than others, of course. But every time Garcia walked out onstage, a sizable portion of the audience looked at it as some kind of communion. Garcia's followers collected hundreds of recordings, attempting to listen to every note that he ever plucked. And, perhaps most telling, 15 years after his Aug. 9 death, the simple bumper-sticker proclamation "Miss you, Jerry!" still carries an implied last name: Garcia.
More: http://www.spinner.com/2010/08/04/jerry-garcia-dead-15-year-anniversary/

 

[dmc]

All the years combine
they melt into a dream
A broken angel sings
from a guitar
In the end there's just a song
comes crying like the wind
through all the broken dreams
and vanished years
Stella Blue
When all the cards are down
there's nothing left to see
There's just the pavement left
and broken dreams
In the end there's still that song
comes crying like the wind
down every lonely street
that's ever been
Stella Blue
I've stayed in every blue-light cheap hotel
Can't win for trying
Dust off those rusty strings just
one more time
Gonna make em shine
It all rolls into one
and nothing comes for free
There's nothing you can hold
for very long
And when you hear that song
come crying like the wind
it seems like all this life
was just a dream
Stella Blue

 

[ckofer]

It was a fun show!

Glad to see people getting out.

DHS you going to puddleduck on August 6th at the stone church? Never been there would be a birthday show for me, just saw it. Might be fun.

A week from today I will be sipping domestic canned beer in the lovely city of Bridgeport and could not be any happier.

 

[ckofer]

It was a fun show!

Here's a little sample http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6gZZURKizY

 

[deadheadskier]

I have read the Eulogy before, but not Robert's 'letter' to Jerry a year after he left us.

Good stuff.

Miss you (((Jerry)))


Eulogy:

Jerry, my friend,
you've done it again,
even in your silence
...the familiar pressure
comes to bear, demanding
I pull words from the air
with only this morning
and part of the afternoon
to compose an ode worthy
of one so particular
about every turn of phrase,
demanding it hit home
in a thousand ways
before making it his own,
and this I can't do alone.
Now that the singer is gone,
where shall I go for the song?

Without your melody and taste
to lend an attitude of grace
a lyric is an orphan thing,
a hive with neither honey's taste
nor power to truly sting.

What choice have I but to dare and
call your muse who thought to rest
out of the thin blue air
that out of the field of shared time,
a line or two might chance to shine --

As ever when we called,
in hope if not in words,
the muse descends.

How should she desert us now?
Scars of battle on her brow,
bedraggled feathers on her wings,
and yet she sings, she sings!

May she bear thee to thy rest,
the ancient bower of flowers
beyond the solitude of days,
the tyranny of hours--
the wreath of shining laurel lie
upon your shaggy head
bestowing power to play the lyre
to legions of the dead

If some part of that music
is heard in deepest dream,
or on some breeze of Summer
a snatch of golden theme,
we'll know you live inside us
with love that never parts
our good old Jack O'Diamonds
become the King of Hearts.

I feel your silent laughter
at sentiments so bold
that dare to step across the line
to tell what must be told,
so I'll just say I love you,
which I never said before
and let it go at that old friend
the rest you may ignore.

One Year Later, in August 1996, Robert Hunter published this email to Jerry:
Dear JG,

it's
been a year since you shuffled off the mortal coil and a lot has
happened. It might surprise you to know you made every front page in the
world. The press is still having fun, mostly over lawsuits challenging
your somewhat ...umm... patchwork Last Will and Testament. Annabelle
didn't get the EC horror comic collection, which I think would piss you
off as much as anything. Nor could Dough Irwin accept the legacy of the
guitars he built for you because the tax-assessment on them,
icon-enriched as they are, is more than he can afford short of selling
them off. The upside of the craziness is: your image is selling briskly
enough that your estate should manage something to keep various wolves
from various familial doors, even after the lawyers are paid. How it's
to be divided will probably fall in the hands of the judge. An expert on
celebrity wills said in the news that yours was a blueprint on how not
to make a will.

The band decided to call it quits. I think it's a
move that had to be made. You weren't exactly a sideman. But nothing's
for certain. Some need at least the pretense of retirement after all
these years. Can they sustain it? We'll see.

I'm writing this
from England, by the way. Much clarity of perspective to be had from
stepping out of the scene for a couple of months. What isn't so clear is
my own role, but it's really no more problematic than it has been for
the last decade. As long as I get words on paper and can lead myself to
believe it's not bullshit, I'm roughly content. I'm not exactly Mr.
Business.

I decided to get a personal archive together to stick
on that stagnating computer site we had. Really started pouring the
mustard on. I'm writing, for crying out loud, my diary on it! Besides
running my ego full tilt (what's new?) I'm trying to give folks some
skinny on what's going down. I don't mean I'm busting the usual suspects
left and right, but am giving a somewhat less than cautious overview
and soapboxing more than a little. They appointed me webmaster, and I
hope they don't regret it.

There are those in the entourage who
quietly believe we're washed up without you. Even should time and
circumstance prove it to be so, we need to believe otherwise long enough
to get some self sustaining operations going, or we'll never know for
sure. It's matter of self respect. Maybe it's a long shot, but this
whole fucking trip was a longshot from the start, so what else is new?

Your
funeral service was one hell of a scene. Maureen and I took Barbara and
Sara in and sat with them. MG waited over at our place. Manasha and
Keelan were also absent. None by choice. Everybody from the band said
some words and Steve, especially, did you proud, speaking with great
love and candor. Annabelle got up and said you were a genius, a great
guy, a wonderful friend, and a shitty father - which shocked part of the
contingent and amused the rest. After awhile the minister said that
that was enough talking, but I called out, from the back of the church,
"Wait, I've got something!" and charged up the aisle and read this piece
I wrote for you, my voice and hands shaking like a leaf. Man, it was
weird looking over and seeing you dead!

A slew of books have come
out about you and more to follow. Perspective is lacking. It's way too
soon. You'd be amazed at the number of people with whom you've had a
nodding acquaintance who are suddenly experts on your psychology and
motivations. Your music still speaks louder than all the BS: who you
were, not the messes you got yourself into. Only a very great star is
afforded that much inspection and that much forgiveness.

There
was so much confusion on who should be allowed to attend the scattering
of your ashes that they sat around for four months. It was way too weird
for this cowboy who was neither invited nor desirous of going. I said
good-bye with my poem at the funeral service. It was cathartic and I
didn't need an anti-climax.

A surreal sidelight: Weir went to
India and scattered a handful of your ashes in the Ganges as a token of
your worldwide stature. He took a lot of flak from the fans for it,
which must have hurt. A bunch of them decided to scapegoat him,
presumably needing someplace to misdirect their anger over the loss of
you. In retrospect, I think Weir was hardest hit of the old crowd by
your death. I take these things in my stride, though I admit to a rough
patch here and there. But Bob took it right on the chin. Shock was
written all over his face for a long time, for any with eyes to see.

Some
of the guys have got bands together and are doing a tour. The fans
complain it's not the same without you, and of course it isn't, but a
reasonable number show up and have a pretty good time. The insane crush
of the latter day GD shows is gone and that's all for the best. From the
show I saw, and reports on the rest, the crowd is discovering that the
sense of community is still present, matured through mutual grief over
losing you. This will evolve in more joyous directions over time, but no
one's looking to fill your shoes. No one has the presumption.

Been
remembering some of the key talks we had in the old days, trying to
suss what kind of a tiger we were riding, where it was going, and how to
direct it, if possible. Driving to the city once, you admitted you
didn't have a clue what to do beyond composing and playing the best you
could. I agreed - put the weight on the music, stay out of politics, and
everything else should follow. I trusted your musical sense and you
were good enough to trust my words. Trust was the whole enchilada,
looking back.

Walking down Madrone Canyon in Larkspur in 1969,
you said some pretty mindblowing stuff, how we were creating a universe
and I was responsible for the verbal half of it. I said maybe, but it
was your way with music and a guitar that was pulling it off. You said
"That's for now. This is your time in the shadow, but it won't always be
that way. I'm not going to live a long time, it's not in the cards.
Then it'll be your turn." I may be alive and kicking, but no pencil
pusher is going to inherit the stratosphere that so gladly opened to
you. Recalling your statement, though, often helped keep me oriented as
my own star murked below the horizon while you streaked across the sky
of our generation like a goddamned comet!

Though my will to
achieve great things is moderated by seeing what comes of them, I've
assigned myself the task of trying to honor the original vision. I'm not
answerable to anybody but my conscience, which, if less than spotless,
doesn't keep me awake at night. Maybe it's best, personally speaking,
that the power to make contracts and deal the remains of what was built
through the decades rests in other hands. I wave the flag and rock the
boat from time to time, since I believe much depends on it, but will
accept the outcome with equanimity.

Just thought it should be
said that I no longer hold your years of self inflicted decline against
you. I did for awhile, felt ripped off, but have come to understand that
you were troubled and compromised by your position in the public eye
far beyond anyone's powers to deal with. Star shit. Who can you really
trust? Is it you or your image they love? No one can understand those
dilemmas in depth except those who have no choice but to live them. You
whistled up the whirlwind and it blew you away. Your substance of choice
made you more malleable to forces you would have brushed off with a
characteristic sneer in earlier days. Well, you know it to be so. Let
those who pick your bones note that it was not always so.

So here
I am, writing a letter to a dead man, because it's hard to find a
context to say things like this other than to imagine I have your ear,
which of course I don't. Only to say that what you were is more
startlingly apparent in your absence than ever it was in the last
decade. I remember sitting in the waiting room of the hospital through
the days of your first coma. Not being related, I wasn't allowed into
the intensive care unit to see you until you came to and requested to
see me. And there you were - more open and vulnerable than I'd ever seen
you. You grasped my hand and began telling me your visions, the crazy
densely packed phantasmagoria way beyond any **** trip, the demons and
mechanical monsters that taunted and derided, telling you endless bad
jokes and making horrible puns of everything - and then you asked, point
blank, "Have I gone insane?" I said "No, you've been very sick. You've
been in a coma for days, right at death's door. They're only
hallucinations, they'll go away. You survived." "Thanks," you said. "I
needed to hear that."

Your biographers aren't pleased that I
don't talk to them, but how am I to say stuff like this to an
interviewer with an agenda? I sometimes report things that occur to me
about you in my journal, as the moment releases it, in my own way, in my
own time, and they can take what they want of that.

Obviously,
faith in the underlying vision which spawned the Grateful Dead might be
hard to muster for those who weren't part of the all night rap sessions
circa 1960-61 ... sessions that picked up the next morning at Kepler's
bookstore then headed over to the Stanford cellar or St. Mike's to
continue over coffee and guitars. There were no hippies in those days
and the beats had bellied up. There was only us vs. 50's consciousness.
There no jobs to be had if we wanted them. Just folk music and
tremendous dreams. Yeah, we dreamed our way here. I trust it. So did
you. Not so long ago we wrote a song about all that, and you sang it
like a prayer. The Days Between. Last song we ever wrote.

Context
is lost, even now. The sixties were a long time ago and getting longer.
A cartoon version of our times satisfies public perception. Our
continuity is misunderstood as some sort of strange persistence of an
outmoded style. Beads, bell bottoms and peace signs. But no amount of
pop cynicism can erase the suspicion, in the minds of the present
generation, that something was going on once that was better than what's
going on now. And I sense that they're digging for "what it is" and
only need the proper catalyst to find it for themselves. Your guitar is
like a compass needle pointing the strange way there. I'm wandering far
afield from the intention of this letter, a year's report, but this year
wasn't made up only of events following your death in some roughly
chronological manner. It reached down to the roots of everything, shook
the earth off, and inspected them. The only constant is the fact that
you remain silent. Various dances are done around that fact.

Don't
misconstrue me, I don't waste much time in grief. Insofar as you were
able, you were an exponent of a dream in the continual act of being
defined into a reality. You had a massive personality and talent to
present it to the world. That dream is the crux of the matter, and
somehow concerns beauty, consciousness and community. We were, and are,
worthy insofar as we serve it. When that dream is dead, there'll be time
enough for true and endless grief.

John Kahn died in May, same
day Leary did. Linda called 911 and they came over and searched the
house, found a tiny bit of coke and carted her off to jail in shock. If
the devil himself isn't active in this world, there's sure something
every bit as mean: institutional righteousness without an iota of fellow
feeling. But, as I figure, that's the very reason the dream is so
important - it's whatever is the diametric opposite of that. Human
kindness.

Trust me that I don't walk around saying "this was what
Jerry would have wanted" to drive my points home. What you wanted is a
secret known but to yourself. You said 'yes' to what sounded like a good
idea at the time, 'no' to what sounded like a bad one. I see more of
what leadership is about, in the absence of it. It's an instinct for
good ideas. An aversion to bad ones. Compromise on indifferent ones.
Power is another matter. Power is not leadership but coercion. People
follow leaders because they want to.

I know you were often sick
and tired of the conflicting demands made on you by contentious forces
you invited into your life and couldn't as easily dismiss. You once said
to me, in 1960, "just say yes to everybody and do what you damn well
want." Maybe, but when every 'yes' becomes an IOU payable in full, who's
coffer is big enough to pay up? "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!"
would be a characteristic reply. Unfortunately, you're not around to
explain what was a joke and what wasn't. It all boils down to signed
pieces of paper with no punch lines appended.

I know what I'm
saying in this letter can be taken a hundred ways. As always, I just say
what occurs to me to say and can't say what doesn't. Could I write a
book about you? No. Didn't know you well enough. Let those who knew you
even less write them. You were canny enough to keep your own self to
yourself and let your fingers do the talking. Speaking of 'personal
matters' was never your shtick.

Our friendship was testy. I
challenged you rather more than you liked, having a caustic tongue. In
later years you preferred the company of those capable of keeping it
light and non-judgmental. I think it must always be that way with
prominent and powerfully gifted persons. I don't say that, for the most
part, your inner circle weren't good and true. They'd have laid down
their lives for you. I'd have had to think about it. I mean, a star is a
star is a star. There's no reality check. If the truth were known, you
were too well loved for your own good, but that smacks of psychologizing
and I drop the subject forthwith

All our songs are acquiring new
meanings. I don't deny writing with an eye to the future at times, but
our mutual folk, blues and country background gave us a mutual liking
for songs that dealt with sorrow and the dark issues of life. Neither of
us gave a fuck for candy coated shit, psychedelic or otherwise. I never
even thought of us as a "pop band." You had to say to me one day, after
I'd handed over the Eagle Mall suite, "Look, Hunter - we're a goddamn
dance band, for Christ's sake! At least write something with a beat!"
Okay. I handed over Truckin' next. How was I to know? I thought we were
silver and gold; something new on this Earth. But the next time I tried
to slip you the heavy stuff, you actually went for it. Seems like you'd
had the vision of the music about the same time I had the vision of the
words, independently. Terrapin. Shame about the record, but the concert
piece, the first night it was played, took me about as close as I ever
expect to get to feeling certain we were doing what we were put here to
do. One of my few regrets is that you never wanted to finish it, though
you approved of the final version I eked out many years later. You said,
apologetically, "I love it, but I'll never get the time to do it
justice." I realized that was true. Time was the one thing you never had
in the last decade and a half. Supporting the Grateful Dead plus your
own trip took all there was of that. The rest was crashing time.
Besides, as you once said, "I'd rather toss cards in a hat than
compose." But man, when you finally got down on it, you sure knew how.

The
pressure of making regular records was a creative spur for a long time,
but poor sales put the economic weight on live concerts where new
material wasn't really required, so my role in the group waned. A
difficult time for me, being at my absolute peak and all. I had to go on
the road myself to make a living. It was good for me. I developed a
sense of self direction that didn't depend on the Dead at all. This
served well for the songs we were still to write together. You sure
weren't interested in flooding the market. You knew one decent song was
worth a dozen cobbled together pieces of shit, saved only by
arrangement. I guess we have a few of those too, but the percentage is
respect ably low. Pop songs come and go, blossom and wither, but we
scored a piece of Americana, my friend. Sooner or later, they'll notice
what we did doesn't die the way we do. I've always believed that and so
did you. Once in awhile we'd even call each other "Mister" and exchange
congratulations. Other people are starting to record those songs now,
and they stand on their own.

For some reason it seems worthwhile
to maintain the Grateful Dead structures: Rex, the website, GDP, the
deadhead office, the studio ... even with the band out of commission. I
don't know if this is some sort of denial that the game is finished, or
if the intuitive impulse is a sound one. I feel it's better to have it
than not, just in case, because once it's gone there's no bringing it
back. The forces will disperse and settle elsewhere. A business that
can't support itself is, of course, no business at all, just a locus of
dissension, so the reality factor will rule. Diminished as we are
without you, there is still some of the quick, bright spirit around. I
mean, you wouldn't have thrown in your lot with a bunch of belly
floppers, would you?

Let me see - is there anything I've missed?
Plenty, but this seems like a pretty fat report. You've been gone a year
now and the boat is still afloat. Can we make it another year? What
forms will it assume? It's all kind of exciting. They say a thousand
years are only a twinkle in God's eye. Is that so?

Missing you in a longtime way.

rh

 

[Vortex]

rest of the furthur tour is up.

Worcester and MSG for me.

www.furthur.net


Thursday, 12 August 2010 06:44

Many Midwest Dead Heads have been calling for some Midwest Furthur shows, and this tour unequivocally answers their requests with a tour-opening trio of shows in Minneapolis, Ames, IA, and St. Louis, followed by two nights in Chicago. The tour-opening show is at the very same venue that the Grateful Dead played on 10/19/71, the night they debuted the new version of the band featuring Keith Godchaux on piano in his first appearance with the Grateful Dead. The tour then moves on to a couple of places Furthur hasn’t yet hit, Reading, PA and Baltimore, MD. The 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore was previously known as the Baltimore Civic Center, site of six Grateful Dead shows. Most famous amongst those would be 9/17/72, featuring a nearly 40 minute Other One (also one of the best of a year filled with great Other Ones!), and 4/19/82, at which Phil recited Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” during “Space.” The tour ends in very familiar Dead Head terrain: one show at the Worcester Centrum (now DCU Center) followed by two nights at Madison Square Garden, a fitting close to the tour after the band has played so many New York (and area) gigs in the past year.

Mon, Nov 8th - Minneapolis, MN @ Northrop Auditorium
Tue, Nov 9th - Ames, IA @ Stephens Auditorium
Thu, Nov 11th - Saint Louis, MO @ Chaifetz Arena
Fri, Nov 12th - Chicago, IL @ UIC Pavilion
Sat, Nov 13th - Chicago, IL @ UIC Pavilion
Sun, Nov 14th - Cincinnati, OH @ U.S. Bank Arena
Tue, Nov 16th - Reading, PA @ Sovereign Center
Wed, Nov 17th - Baltimore, MD @ 1st Mariner Arena
Fri, Nov 19th - Worcester, MA @ DCU Center
Sat, Nov 20th - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
Sun, Nov 21st - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
TourThu, Sep. 16th - Eugene, OR - Buy Tix
Fri, Sep. 17th - Eugene, OR - Buy Tix
Sat, Sep. 18th - Redmond, WA - Buy Tix
Mon, Sep. 20th - Santa Barbara, CA - Buy Tix
Tue, Sep. 21st - Los Angeles, CA - Buy Tix
Wed, Sep. 22nd - Las Vegas, NV - Buy Tix
Fri, Sep. 24th - Morrison, CO
view all dates>

 

[deadheadskier]

just Worcest here. Would love to hit MSG as well, but $$$$

I said this during summer tour and I'll say it again. Their tour manager needs to be fired. 11 shows in 13 nights? too much to ask of a 70 year old

 

[dmc]

Just blew a wad of cash on a Levon Helm Midnight Ramble... My hero Stanton Moore is playing..

MSG Furthur will be gametime for me..

 

[dmc]

My friends writing after visting 710 last week..

---------------------

The Dark Star over 710 and the Days Between
I happened to be in San Francisco on Sunday, August 8th. Realizing the gravity of the next day, I paid my respects at 710 Ashbury, the place where it all began. Naturally there were many people coming and going, and the Haight was alive with weekend tourists and locals. Even a bluegrass/jug band jammed in a doorway on Haight. As I posed for my photo in front of the hallowed door, I got caught up in conversation with a fellow deadhead, who looked to be about the same age and also was accompanied by a teen-age son. The similarities were pretty funny.
We talked for a few minutes about the old shows we probably saw together; the Nassau Coliseum on Halloween 1979, Radio City 1980 and other Northeast tours. The guy, his name was Hal, said that he listened all the time to Sirius 32 for his Dead fix. That was another thing we had in common. But in many ways the Dead Channel has been Pandora’s Box for me and some of my other Dead Head friends.
A couple of weeks ago I was listening to one of the old concerts that 32 puts on twice a day. On this particular day it was a show from 1969, which featured a vintage Pigpen rap during Lovelight. It was great to listen as Pig took the band down and rapped to the audience for about ten minutes, offering blunt and encouraging lessons in how to make a woman happy and maybe also get a girlfriend. This was classic Grateful Dead, acting as a blues back-up band to their lead singer. It must have been akin to watching a male Irma Thomas or Etta James leading their band through a series of highs and lows. You could almost feel Jerry and the boys smiling and laughing as the Pig touched the audience in ways only he knew how. This show reinforced a statement I heard Etta James make on a NYE 1982 show when she joined the Dead for a rousing version of “Tell Mama”. As the Tower of Power horns roared into the signature hook of that classic, you could Jerry and Bob and Phil slide into a groove, while the drums syncopated in the background. Etta yelled out a remark: “The Grateful Dead is the baddest American blues band in the world. When you hear the Grateful dead you hear the blues. Hey, How could you have a name like that?” When I listen to that tape I always laugh because I can envision Jerry smiling from ear to ear as the band continued to lay down a groove behind this huge and hugely talented blues woman!
This version of Lovelight that Pig and the Band were laying down on some night in 1969 was emblematic of what the Grateful Dead was all about, and with the death of Pigpen that was about to change dramatically. I’ve heard or read quotes from Garcia saying words to the effect that once Pigpen died then the Dead were free to move on to other musical forms. Pigpen was both a joy and I guess a bit of an anchor. His steadfast adherence to the blues kept the Dead somewhat locked into that genre (and of course cowboy music and jug music). His death freed them to explore new ones. But those psychedelic blues were the Grateful Dead’s calling card, the thing that set them apart from everybody else. When Pig died, obviously so did this epic version of the Grateful Dead.
But at this moment I was enjoying Lovelight and wishing I could be there. But I wasn’t there and never got to experience the Pigpen era. I finally got to see the Dead live in 1976, a full ten years after they began pushing the boundaries of musical time and space. By the time I saw the Dead they were full on into the Blues for Allah/Mars Hotel era, and it was a great time to see the Band. Jerry was still very active and alive, and the band was extremely tight. His exuberance dominated the stage. No matter where he stood he was front and center. The band was fresh off their one-year “gone fishing” hiatus and certainly, the music never stopped. Or at least it seemed that way. Because I had nothing to compare it with, I was immediately entranced by the live Dead I was seeing and hearing in person. I didn’t know any better.
And that is what the Sirius 32 and the dead archive cd’s have done. They have opened our eyes (and ears).
In the middle of the Pigpen radio groove my cellphone rang. My friend Webster was calling to make sure I was hearing this incredible jam session that was four decades old and yet as fresh as anything you could want to hear. We started talking about the old dead shows, the ones we missed out on. And he brought up a salient point. Hearing these old shows really makes it obvious just how much the band had deteriorated by the mid to late 1980’s. And what he said was obviously so true. “Those shows from the 60’s were really raw, but really alive and electric-like nothing they have ever done since then.”
When you are around someone all the time it is harder to notice the changes that they are going through. But if you leave a neighborhood for a while, when you come back, the changes are instantly obvious. And that’s the way it was with the dead.
Listening to the tapes from the early 1970’s, and especially the great shows from 1973 reveal a very tight, jazzy ensemble that had moved from the psychedelic, electric blues into a groovier and moodier jam. On some of those jams you can hear Jerry take the band down these dark musical corridors, frenetically punctuating the mood with quick guitar riffs over a jazz/blues rhythm section. Keith Godchaux may have been somewhat of a follower in a musical sense, but on some of these jams he really complements Jerry with his tonal attack. A very dark but melodious jam at the end of “Eyes of the World” from February 1973 comes to mind. As the song descends into a prolonged guitar solo, the band follows Jerry through a series of chord changes that clearly illustrates the Dead’s musical versatility. At this moment each member of the band is a jazz virtuoso working his own solo as part of a larger jam. To me it was not the song but the journey after the song that finally brought the band and the audience together into a dramatic China Doll. Once again, do I wish I was there for that one.
I got my share of good shows, getting a chance to see the dead extensively in 1977,78 and 79. But by winter of 1979 Godchaux’s run with the band was very obviously (at least to me) coming to a conclusion. I hate to say it, but his departure seemed to signal a profound change in the band.
At first the change seemed to energize the Dead. Brent Mydland brought new energy and a new style. More gospel organ, less blues and jazz piano. Brent’s signature runs on the B3 could really energize the crowd and punctuate a dramatic musical crescendo, as the music style of the dead continued to morph into something else. But by 1985 that something else seemed to be a musical malaise. Although the hit songs of 1987 and ‘89 with Touch of Grey really brought the band to a new level, to me the music had suffered. The musical excellence had become sporadic, with the great shows less frequent. Used to be if you saw the dead three times in a row then you got a great show and two good shows. That was changing. The bad shows were popping up more often.
The 1987 six night stand at the garden produced two memorable shows but sadly, one very forgettable show. As the 1980’s wore on, the bad shows became more frequent. I would love to blame this on Brent, but it was very obviously all on Jerry. One particular show at the Nassau Coliseum illustrated the problem perfectly.
The show started out with a rousing opener and the first set was pretty up-tempo. But by the second set Jerry was fiddling with his amp and his equipment way too much. He continuously walked back to his amp and kept adjusting it, and his guitar, with his back to the audience, for many minutes at a time. The songs were fizzling and the rest of the band appeared to be as frustrated as the crowd. At one point I could almost feel Bobby try to strap the entire band onto his back and pull them through this show that was slipping through their collective grasp. But he couldn’t do it. Jerry was just completely consumed by his technical issues and the show degenerated into a flop.
In 1991 I saw the same thing happen at the Garden during a Garcia show. The encore of “You are My Shining Star” was almost too much to bear. I walked down the stairs that night grumbling to anyone who would listen. Man was I pissed off. Jerry’s energy seemed to be gone and that show was symptomatic.
But, like the naïve sports fan, I refused or could not see the handwriting on the wall. I can’t believe that I didn’t recognize that Mark McGwire had grown into a grotesque giant or that Sammy Sosa could not possibly be this home-run hitting, larger-than-life matinee idol. And I could not believe or even suspect that Jerry Garcia had a huge drug problem. Yes I was aware of his arrest after the Superbowl, and his coma and other issues, but I could not fathom that he was a heroin junkie.
Of course I knew, even enjoyed the fact that the Dead and especially Captain Trips had been some of the pioneers of Furthur; the house band at the Acid Trips. Yes it was drugs, but they were recreational. They were mind expanding but not addicting. The dead were druggies but not drug addicts. At least that is what I told myself. But the evidence was right there, and I am sure many knew it then or could see it then. But not me.
The death of Brent Mydland was a sad coda for what I thought was the Dead’s lost decade, the 1980’s. But as they say, as one door closes another one opens. And the injection of Bruce Hornsby into the mix seemed to re-energize Jerry. I remember going to a Saturday show at the Garden early in the set of nine shows in September of 1991. The crowd on the street was buzzing about Jack Straw as the possible opener, everybody was jacked up about Hornsby and what he would be bringing to the mix. Well, they didn’t open with Jack Straw, and the crowd let out a collective moan as they cranked into “Feel Like a Stranger,” but the buzz resumed as the band launched into Jack Straw for the second song. And they didn’t let us down. Jerry was beaming and more exuberant than I’d seen him in years; Hornsby was bringing out the competitive and creative juices in the old master. It was a great night. Unfortunately Hornsby had a short shelf-life and the energy dissipated with his departure.
My last show, Highgate Vermont, June 15, 1995, was an eerie harbinger of what was to come. The first set, which was very good, was marred by some gate-crashing ugliness. I heard rumours that people had gotten hurt in the melee. And the problem wasn’t the cops, because the Vermont State Troopers had seemed to be pretty mellow. Things were so chaotic that we didn’t even get close enough to hear Dylan. But Jerry played a pretty good version of Peggy-O and the set was nice. I was looking forward to a rockin’ second set.
But that didn’t happen. With fits and starts that were typical of some of those lousy Nassau Coliseum shows from the 80’s, the band never seemed to find a rhythm and the show fizzled out. It was like a tale of two bands. The one that showed up for the first set was on the money. The band that came on for the second set stole our money. It was such a dispiriting show that I opted not to go to see them at Knickerbocker Arena in Albany and then chose to stay on the beach rather than travel to a hot Meadowlands show in Giants Stadium.
A month later it all became very clear and very sad. I guess many dead heads and people in the know were well aware of Jerry’s problem, and the band’s musical problems were very evident to me, I guess I was just in denial.
But now, standing outside 710, talking to a dead head of my generation, all the good times came flooding back. Yet the reality can’t be denied, and Sirius 32, the Dead Channel, reinforces it every time they dig deep into the archives and pull out one of those masterpieces from the Avalon Ballroom or the Fillmore. As my buddy Webster put it so succinctly, “ Those shows were raw, but the band had such an energy and electricity in those days.” I guess it would have been really something to be able to play at that level for twenty more years, and I am just glad that I got to see some of those great shows in the seventies and a couple of gems from the early 90’s. In life you have to take the bad with the good, and with Jerry Garcia there was so much great that it was hard to believe there could be any bad. When the lights went out at the start of each Grateful Dead show there was that moment of unbelievable potential- the excitement of what was to come. Towards the end, the closing of the show sadly revealed how hard it had become to deliver on that promise. Maybe that was what Hunter was talking about when he wrote “Days Between.”

 

[deadheadskier]

Got a Worcester ticket

For those interested, I've seen the following Phish dates all over

10-08-10 AUSTIN TX
10-10-10 BROOMFIELD CO
10-11-10 BROOMFIELD CO
10-12-10 BROOMFIELD CO
10-15-10 CHARLESTON SC
10-16-10 CHARLESTON SC
10-19-10 AUGUSTA ME
10-20-10 UTICA NY
10-22-10 PROVIDENCE RI
10-23-10 AMHERST MA
10-24-10 AMHERST MA
10-26-10 MANCHESTER NH
10-29-10 ATLANTIC CITY NJ
10-30-10 ATLANTIC CITY NJ
10-31-10 ATLANTIC CITY NJ


Would've loved to have done the Providence > Amherst run, but will be in Ohio. Looks like Manchester is it for me.

 

[Vortex]

Manchester nh. That is pretty easy.

I ordered via Ticket bastard , Ny and Worcester tickets to be safe.

I ordered via Mo worcester an my buddy did MSG for me, but hedged my bet. 3 out of 10 orders will be filled for Sat MSG 5 out of ten for Sunday . and 8 out of t10 for worcester on Friday according to gdtstoo.

 

[spring_mountain_high]

making the leap and will see further in reading in november...the 20 minute ride combined with plentiful good seats made the choice easier...figure i'll go in with low expectations so as not to be disappointed

 

[deadheadskier]

Wanna by Jerry's House?

http://www.55elmirador.com/index.html

 

[ZYDECORICH]

I was looking for a Chateau, but i need 21 rooms.

 

[dmc]

Will one do?

 

[JerseyJoey]

I don't wanna buy it, just wanna rent it for an hour or two...........

 

[marcski]

I met an old mistake, walking down the street, today....

 

[dmc]

I met an old mistake, walking down the street, today....

that is such a great line...

 

[JerseyJoey]

that is such a great line...

I didn't want to be mean about it
But I didn't have one good word to say

 

[marcski]

l couldn't find the "what are you listening to now" thread...so I will post this here. As I mature with age, like a fine wine , I appreciate the classics more and more. The Beatles. I never really listened deep into their repertoire. But, I have to tell you, the Rooftop Concert....fucking awesome. They were such a fun, good live band! Covered a lot of ground, too. Too bad I never was able to see them.